Job Hunting..For Someone Else?

Akilae729

There should be a link in the long distance relationship that forwards into this thread because even after a 4 year long distance relationship through college, you can still get killed by the end game.

I'm going to be living in Los Angeles for the next two years finishing my MS and my girlfriend is OK with moving to LA in order to be with me.

The problem is that she can't find a job. She is soon to be a recent journalism graduate from a top tier east coast journalism program with work experience at both NPR and The Washington Post. She's been putting in applications like crazy in Los Angeles to various journalism outlets and so far there has been nothing.

Is there anything that I can do to help her find a job here? I've already started receiving the job openings posted by my journalism school but I personally don't have any connections of my own in that field in LA.

I feel powerless in this situation and if she isn't able to find work in Los Angeles it's going to destroy this relationship. We are both starting to get extremely depressed over the whole situation and I especially hate to see her struggling like this.

Wassermelone

Considering its journalism, she could look for freelance.

My wife and I are both illustrators. She does freelance, I am salaried. It works out to be a really nice balance as if I have an opportunity and need to move for a job (as I just did) theres nothing tying her down. If she has an opportunity... she doesn't have to move, she just does it from home.

Kross

How easily can she get job where she is right now? Journalism opportunities seem pretty bleak everywhere from what I've heard from other people with similar problems. That doesn't really help with finding her a job, but I think you need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture.

Sometimes these things just take time. Can you afford to house her there for awhile?

Akilae729

Kross wrote: »

How easily can she get job where she is right now? Journalism opportunities seem pretty bleak everywhere from what I've heard from other people with similar problems. That doesn't really help with finding her a job, but I think you need to step back a bit and look at the bigger picture.

Sometimes these things just take time. Can you afford to house her there for awhile?

She actually turned down an offer from the Post while looking for jobs in LA so who knows what will come of that.

I could definitely have her live here until she finds something. Problem is that until august the apartment I would have available is going to be a two hour drive from where I'm going to be working. I can't ask her to move to LA for me and not be around. 4 hour daily commute wouldn't be possible. (Would need to leave at 5am and would return home at 7pm). Hell, maybe it would be possible for only two months.

It's really a shit situation all in all

Grizzled

Los Angeles is probably not exactly a great place for budding journalists right now, seeing as the L.A. Times has cut about 15%+ of staff in the last couple of years - presumably all those people are filtering down and taking the lower-tier positions that your girlfriend would be applying for. I found a good number of position advertisements just poking around on Google, but naturally most of them want a few years of experience.

Having been in almost exactly the same situation some years ago (going off to grad school, looking for jobs for soon-to-follow journalist now-ex-girlfriend), I can tell you that what she ended up having to do was freelance and cast around for work for a couple years until she got established, which doesn't sound like an ideal outcome in your case. But I think that given the current situations in both journalism and the economy in general, your girlfriend might have to consider settling for something less than a full-time journalism position.

Two more thoughts - has she tried looking in the outlying areas of Los Angeles? I know that many towns in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley have their own paper, and that Santa Monica and Venice, for example, support little local dailies. Maybe she can get a foot in the door with one of them, even if it's not a full-time position?

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/California/Counties_and_Regions/Los_Angeles_County/News_and_Media/Newspapers/?b=20

On the other hand, she may just have to suck it up and work at Starbucks or something while building up her clip file and freelancing (not saying she doesn't have good qualifications now, just that it never hurts to bolster your body of work ).

Akilae729

Grizzled wrote: »

Los Angeles is probably not exactly a great place for budding journalists right now, seeing as the L.A. Times has cut about 15%+ of staff in the last couple of years - presumably all those people are filtering down and taking the lower-tier positions that your girlfriend would be applying for. I found a good number of position advertisements just poking around on Google, but naturally most of them want a few years of experience.

Having been in almost exactly the same situation some years ago (going off to grad school, looking for jobs for soon-to-follow journalist now-ex-girlfriend), I can tell you that what she ended up having to do was freelance and cast around for work for a couple years until she got established, which doesn't sound like an ideal outcome in your case. But I think that given the current situations in both journalism and the economy in general, your girlfriend might have to consider settling for something less than a full-time journalism position.

Two more thoughts - has she tried looking in the outlying areas of Los Angeles? I know that many towns in Orange County and the San Fernando Valley have their own paper, and that Santa Monica and Venice, for example, support little local dailies. Maybe she can get a foot in the door with one of them, even if it's not a full-time position?

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/U_S__States/California/Counties_and_Regions/Los_Angeles_County/News_and_Media/Newspapers/?b=20

On the other hand, she may just have to suck it up and work at Starbucks or something while building up her clip file and freelancing (not saying she doesn't have good qualifications now, just that it never hurts to bolster your body of work ).

Yeah, im afraid that might happen. She has money to be in LA and not have steady work.

It's just extremely unpalatable because she has worked putting on air content for NPR in the past and currently is producing online video content at the Washington Post.

Part of it is finding a job. Part of it is finding a job that is worth the sacrifice of turning down a fresh journalism grad's dream job.

Grizzled

Does she have any connections she could use from either of those places that she worked? There are a couple of pretty big NPR affiliates out here, maybe she knows someone who could give her a boost over the mass of other applicants?

Edit: I PM'ed something relevant to you, although probably your girlfriend is already aware of it.

Perpetual

Akilae729 wrote: »

Part of it is finding a job. Part of it is finding a job that is worth the sacrifice of turning down a fresh journalism grad's dream job.

I have several friends that have journalism degrees and all I hear is horror stories.

Basically, there aren't any more dream jobs in the journalism field. All the big newspapers are dying off. The ones that aren't have their employees living in constant fear of new layoffs.

10 years from now it will be a very different landscape.

So I'd go with the following advice from earlier in the thread:

Considering its journalism, she could look for freelance.

My wife and I are both illustrators. She does freelance, I am salaried. It works out to be a really nice balance as if I have an opportunity and need to move for a job (as I just did) theres nothing tying her down. If she has an opportunity... she doesn't have to move, she just does it from home.